Police Deny Bomb Claim

May. 16, 1989

LONDON (AP) _ Police on Monday dismissed as false a claim by an underground Scottish nationalist group that it firebombed a quarry in an anti-nuclear protest.

Investigations showed the Saturday night fire that seriously damaged a stone-crushing plant in Glensanda quarry near Oban on the west coast of Scotland was accidental, said a spokesman for the Northern Police region.

After the fire, an anonymous caller to the domestic Press Association news agency in London claimed to represent the Scottish National Liberation Army and said the group bombed the quarry because it was being developed as a site for dumping civilian and military nuclear waste.

Scottish government officials said the allegation about nuclear waste was untrue.

No one was injured in the firebombing.

The Scottish National Liberation Army is a shadowy nationalist group that has sent letter bombs to government officials, including Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher and Malcolm Rifkind, secretary for Scotland. Police accused it of bombing a London army barracks in 1983, slightly injuring five people.